Being Black, Converting to Catholicism, and Losing Weight….and now Being Catholic!

Main menu

Tag Archives: diabetes

One week on my new diet way of eating, and i have lost 4.6 pounds! *happy dance* Yeah yeah. Maybe it’s water weight, but I still lost so don’t you take that from me!! LOL

I know I wrote about doing the slow carb diet, but there is just one problem with the implementation: I HATE BEANS!!!

Well…hate….is a strong word. Let’s say that I seriously dislike 95% of bean products. I’ll eat beans in chilli and baked beans, but that’s the end of my bean-eating repertoire. The slow carb diet wants you to eat a lot of beans, and I just can’t do that. I also missed having fruit.

So, I came up with my own plan. It’s kinda of a mix of the paleo diet and the slow carb diet. Here are the rules:

– in fact, no grains at all (I don’t like wheat bread and brown rice).

– no caloric drinks (don’t drink your calories). Drink as much water as you can handle without forcing it down your throat.

– one serving of fruit per day

– 1-2 servings of dairy (usually for me, that’s yogurt or maybe cheese. I don’t like to drink milk)

– 1 cheat day per week

This is what seems to work for me. It’s sustainable according to my life right now.

A point about the dairy: I have read both pro and cons for dairy products. So YMMV. I like my greek yogurt and I’m not giving it up.

A point about the cheat day: I try not to go crazy on it. However, on the slow carb diet, you can go absolutely nuts if you choose and there is nothing wrong with that IMO. For me, I know that I can’t go too crazy, or I won’t jump back on the wagon the next day. For instance, if I want a burger from Burger King, I’ll get the whopper junior instead of a whopper and a small fries instead of the medium. I’m still getting the same taste, but in smaller portions – because ultimately, that’s what I’m trying to teach myself anyway – to eat smaller. Also on cheat day, I still try to stay away from the caloric drinks. I stick to the diet ones. (Crystal light lemonade is my fave. I even drank that when I wasn’t dieting. I add lemon juice.)

Also, one of most important things is to PLAN PLAN PLAN!! If you don’t plan your meals, more than likely, if you’re on the go, you’re gonna pick up something full of carbs. There are just not as many low carb options out there outside of salad.

This is what I’m doing in a nutshell. Let’s see if I can keep going. *wink*

I thank you Lord for giving me the strength and motivation to not give up…

Medifast was a no-go: The food was okay but every item had added soy protein and I tasted it! Bleh! So I sent all of my unused portions back to them. They can keep it!! LOL!

So, determined not to give up, here I am again.

I am going to try the Slow Carb Diet. This diet uses real food and has simple rules plus it allows one cheat day per week! Yay! It took me an hour this morning to prepare my breakfast and lunch for today, but that shouldn’t be a normal occurrence. I should have prepared it last night.

[Different thoughts going in my head… And this song by Prince is stuck in my head. The best line of that song is “Nobody said the race was fair, but I’m gonna keep runnin’ just the same” – It’s my motto now.]

Sine it’s Day 1 on my weightloss plan, I have noticed a lot of food-related things:

On my commute to work everyday, I pass three McDonalds, three Burger Kings, one Krispy Kreme, one Taco Bell, one Chick Fil-A, one Starbucks, one Dunkin Donuts, two chinese restaurants, one Sheik, and one Krystals. I also notice that there are a lot of food commercials that are aired during all times of the day. Honestly, I am glad that I notice these things, so I won’t be blind-sided by temptation. I know where it may come from…LOL.

My dream is to jog/run for a few miles. Everyone that I know who runs on a regular basis say it’s relaxing and clears their heads. What a great avenue in which to experience that relaxation.

I don’t want to be a size 6. It’s not my goal. It’s to be a size 10, but i don’t know if I can maintain it. I’m sure it would take a lot of work, but I will try to get there. I am not saying that I can’t do it and or I am not gonna try. I am going to try hard to get there. It will probably take a 100lb loss for me which is no easy thing, but I cannot give up on myself!

The number of the scale is not important to me. I just want to be able to shop in the “regular’ sizes and not the plus size store/sections, like I do now.

When you’re living everyday in your own body, sometimes you don’t realize slow changes that may happen to you over a long length of time.

I used to see myself as the same person that I was in high school – same size and same look.

Then someone younger calls you ma’am. Or the cashier doesn’t ask for I.D. anymore when buying a bottle of wine. Or you see a picture of yourself from 15 years ago…

Then it hits you: I’m not the same person. I’ve had more life experiences…yes…but, I don’t look the same. I’m getting older.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the alternative is being dead and I very much like being alive – especially since I have a baby boy that I want to see grow up and have a family of his own. I thank God for everyday that I have.

But, I am getting older no matter how I try to ignore it.

Now, I don’t have any wrinkles or anything like that (thanks to good genes and more melanin), but I have gained a considerable amount of weight.

I can take both hands and grab a glob full of my own stomach. There are a few (not many) restaurants where I can’t sit in their booths anymore. And I just barely fit into plane seats. There’s a narrow pathway that I try to walk through that appears to be large enough for me to fit, but i barely squeeze through while holding my breath and sucking in my stomach.

My struggles with weight loss began probably about 12 years ago. I wasn’t overweight as a child, so it wasn’t until I became an adult when I started having issues. I was working full-time and going to school for my MBA, also on a full time basis. That didn’t leave much time for cooking, so on the way to class everyday, I would stop by McDonalds. I also began began taking Depo-Provera shots. Suffice it to say…I blew up! I come from a family full of overweight people, so it wasn’t hard gaining weight. Ha!

I’ve tried a number of weight loss programs: calorie counting, Weight Watchers, Metabolic Research Center, and appetite suppressants. MRC was way too restrictive! I had the most success on WW. In fact, I lost 30 pounds, but I gained it all back before, during, and after I had my son (LOL). All in all, I need to lose close to 100 pounds, by the grace of God. At least, that’s my ideal goal.

I am knocking on 40 years old, so I know my likes and dislikes by now. I know that I don’t like counting calories and points because it forces me to think about food too much – measuring, logging, counting…it was constantly on my mind.

So it seems like MRC would have been perfect…right? Wrong!! Not only were the food choices really restricted, but I had to cook and prepare food A LOT (because their food choices was so restrictive)! That did not work with my infant son. I was spending almost 2 hours every night preparing my food for the next day. Thank God my husband was so understanding. Plus, that was taking away too much time from my baby. I do work full-time as well, so MRC wasn’t working out.

So, I’ve decided to do Medifast. It comes doctor-recommended, and the weight will come off faster than some other plans. Everything is decided for me – packages are already pre-portioned and ready to go. Plus, I get one “real” meal per day (non-starchy veggie and lean meat). Even though it is strict, I don’t have to count every thing and spend hours per day preparing meals. I know, however, I will be using a different method for maintenance (once I get to my goal). I won’t reveal that right now, but if I get close to my goal, I will. Exercise comes about 3 weeks into the plan so my body won’t go into full shock! LOL!

Since I am close to 40, my body is changing. My knee is starting to bother me every now and then. My cholesterol is too high. If I sit for too long (about 30 minutes) I get really stiff. I feel like I’m getting old before my time. I just want to get my health and body okay, without focusing on the number on the scale. I have been blessed to not acquire diabetes and high blood pressure, which also run in my family. (In fact, it’s VERY common in black families).

I just pray that I get through it this time and finish…

(My next post will be about my anticipated conversion to Catholicism.)